It’s easy to miss them

Spittlebugs - also called froghoppers - are small and soft, hiding inside the frothy foam created around them to stay safe.

This year, the meadow beside my workshop was full of them. Quiet lives, tucked into stems. Overlooked, but everywhere. 

It reminded me when as a child I kept noticing the frothy white foam — at first as a curiosity, not knowing what it was and then examining it and finding the tiny life, a little bug in the middle of the ‘cuckoo spit’.

Now I’m seeing a sort of pattern.  A rhythm of protection.  A hidden world alive with action and softness.

So, I carved one.

Not simply as a scientific representation, but as a gesture of reverence.  A sculpture that could hold the quiet power of something unseen. To hold the noticing.

The sculpture is carved in pale yellow limestone - smooth and subtle.  There’s no show, it isn’t a grand piece, but it has significance.

This piece is for the one who remembers the meadow, the small signs, the life just below the surface.  The value in something most people walk past.

Spittlebug is part of a current body of work.  If it speaks to you, you’ll know.